Equipment of this type are used in systems for the treatment of continuous strips in which, for eliminating any stoppage of the user apparatus for roll changes and keeping the running at full speed and full productivity, it is necessary to splice the strip coming from a first spool to the strip coming from a second spool when the first spool is next to depletion. For this purpose, a terminal edge of the strip of a waiting full spool is manually prepared on a retention member of one of two splicing and cutting mechanisms. When the strip fed by the spool in process is about to run out, it is transversely cut and an initial edge retained by the retention member is spliced to the terminal edge prepared on the retention member. The terminal edge of the depleting spool is left idle for removal of the same spool and waiting for a full spool.
The splicing equipment of the known type for continuous strips of paper, tissue paper, plastic and the like coming from spools are more or less suitable to be employed in systems in which a single type of strip is substantially used so that a given spool is used from the beginning to the end.
Further, known splicing equipment have large dimensions in plan, the access to the splicing and cutting mechanisms results complex and the replacing of the depleted spools on respective unwinding devices can provide shifting of suspended loads.
In some fields regarding the treatment of paper web, as for example in the field of book on demand, there is the need of manufacturing books or brochures, even of a few pages, formed by paper of different features as weights or color, coming from paper rolls. This result was obtained by continuously exchanging the feed rollers in manual mode, with an increase in costs and a considerable lengthening of the working times.